During spring break I decided to step in the shoes of bloggers. I wanted to know what it was like to blog. I came away liking it very much.
To start with, it felt weird writing for fun. It was weird to not “have” to write on a certain topic for class and write about it in an “academic” way. Although I decided to stick to fashion and art based topics, I had a lot of freedom to pick what I wanted to explore and how I wanted to go about it. It is interesting how much goes into a blog post before you actually sit down to write it. I planned my days around activities that I wanted to go to, so that I could write about them on my blog—specifically the Textile Museum and Frida Kahlo I felt were must sees so I could blog about them.
As an amateur blogger, I didn’t expect how long it took me to blog. I went to certain locations, spent a decent amount of time there making sure I observed and soaked in enough information so that I felt proficient and confident enough to write a post about it, and take time to photograph certain things. This is all before I actually began to write, which is the most time consuming part. I can’t help but think if it takes me this long to write a post, I can’t imagine how long it takes professional bloggers. Bloggers who blog for a living spot out locations to shoot, edit their photographs, and do research before writing, among many other things. It is hard to imagine someone doing all this digital labor for free.
Although blogging is very time consuming I had a blast blogging. It felt like an online diary and it felt nice doing something completely for me. I think blogging can be a slippery slope in some ways because an audience isn’t tangible, it is easy to forget that you aren’t the only one reading what you wrote. Bloggers are obviously aware of this, but it is easy to forget.
I am still in awe that blogging has become a career, and am trying to discover in my conference project how/who can become a successful blogger and how bloggers have changed the fashion industry. Blogging over break definitely helped me to better understand the digital work that goes behind it. Although posts come off looking so effortless, there is a lot of work that went into making it that way.